International controls

Throughout the 1800s the Chinese government considered opium an important moral and economic question, but obviously China needed international help. In 1909 U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt proposed an international investigation of the opium problem; a meeting of 13 nations held in Shanghai in the same year resulted in recommendations that formed the basis of the first opium convention held at The Hague in 1912. Ratification of the Hague Convention occurred during the meetings of 1913 and 1914. Although further regulatory activity was suspended during the course of World War I, ratification of the Versailles peace treaties of 1919–20 ... (100 of 16,174 words)